


A Night Like Any Other

by spyglass



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, First Dates, Unrelated to S3 spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-06
Updated: 2014-10-06
Packaged: 2018-02-20 05:15:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2416268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spyglass/pseuds/spyglass
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Felicity doesn't think anything of it when Oliver asks her to dinner. After all, Team Arrow goes out for dinner from time to time. But starting the moment Oliver picks her up, she can sense there's something different about tonight. From the flowers to the restaurant, the entire evening is the most romantic non-date Felicity has had in months, but one thing she's sure of is this: it's most definitely not a date.</p><p>Or, she might have known that Oliver intended otherwise, if only he'd remembered to ask.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Night Like Any Other

**Author's Note:**

> This is an idea that's been on the back burner for a while. Some of you on Tumblr may remember it from a headcanons post I did back in January ([here](http://allstartstofade.tumblr.com/post/73776258071)), but I haven't been able to finish it until now.
> 
> Special thanks to mystarsandmyoceans for being a wonderfully thorough beta reader. In addition to my regular disclaimers, the name of the restaurant and the inspiration behind Felicity's new job were both inspired by a Julie James novel.
> 
> This is set approximately a year after the S2 finale, without taking any S3 spoilers into account. At least I managed to get it in under the wire before the S3 premiere :) Enjoy!

In hindsight, the way that he asks her should have been her first clue.

The second clue—the second definite clue, at least—is the fact that Diggle is missing.

But that comes later.

The truth is she has imagined this day, this moment, more times than she would care to admit. It's the Oliver Queen effect, after all, and knowing the real him, the man underneath the hood, means that she is less immune than most. The problem is _because_ she knows the real him, she has to maintain a carefully drawn distinction between the occasional daydreams and reality. Otherwise, she runs the risk of confusing one as the other. So she drew her line a long time ago, because she has always been smarter than that.

At least, that's what she keeps telling herself.

 

 

 

The executive floor of Queen Consolidated is both familiar and strange all at once, and Felicity gives herself a moment as she steps off the elevator to take it all in. Although for the better part of the past year, she’s been stopping by the building at least once a week, she hasn’t been to this particular floor during regular business hours since just after Oliver regained control of the company two months ago. Her new office is only a ten minute drive from Queen Consolidated, so she’s set up a standing lunch date with her friends from her days in the IT Department. And while she likes to stop by and visit, she doesn’t usually come upstairs on her way back out.

On the one hand, Felicity knows it’s silly to stay away from the executive floor, but on the other, it’s not like she doesn’t see Oliver and Diggle practically everyday anyway. And the selfish part of her, the part she usually tries to bury, prefers to remember herself as the IT girl and not the Executive Assistant.

It’s all worked out for the best though and she has no regrets, so there really is no reason she can’t stop by and say hello before she heads back to her office. She usually finds Oliver wandering in the IT department right around the time they’re arriving back from lunch, and when she didn’t see him even after hanging around an extra fifteen minutes, she had decided she’d better run upstairs just to check.

Oliver’s default modes are fairly predictable, so when he fails to show up for something as expected during regular business hours, Felicity can never be sure whether he just got distracted while brooding or if something dangerous came up and he had been forced to zipline out a window…

Arriving at the executive suite, a quick glance shows no Oliver but also no broken windows, which Felicity decides is a positive sign.

“Felicity!” The friendly voice of Oliver’s new Executive Assistant, a recent Starling City University graduate named Damian, greets her, and when she turns to say hello, he gives her a sheepish, relieved smile.

“Maybe you can give us a hand? Mr. Queen can’t seem to find some report he says he was working on last year. Something about an energy conservation project?”

“Oh, yeah. I do remember that.”

It had been one of their projects that had fallen by the wayside last year when other things suddenly became more important, like saving the city. Felicity knows Oliver has a much clearer vision of what he wants for the company and his family’s legacy now, but she _is_ glad he’s kept a few of their old projects in mind as well.

“Mr. Queen is convinced that it’s somewhere in your old filing system.” Damian frowns; he’s got a new system because hers never quite worked for him.

It’s then that Felicity notices Oliver, sitting on the floor with his legs crossed as he diligently opens every file in the series of filing cabinets. Needless to say, he is not having much luck.

Smiling, she shakes her head because _of course_ he forgot. “I didn’t keep a paper copy. He’s got it on a flash drive, not that he’d remember.”

“Can you—?”

“I’ll go tell him,” she says, laughing as she walks toward the glass door. Just as she eases the door closed behind her, Oliver slams the drawer he had been working in emphatically, grumbling in frustration.

“Hey, Oliver,” she says. Felicity learned a long time ago that no matter how eternally aware he is and no matter what extreme ninja-like skills he possesses (or perhaps because of them), it’s always best to make sure not to startle him.

He turns immediately, and while he may not quite smile in greeting, he does look marginally less frustrated. Felicity will take it.

“Felicity?” He says her name slowly, apparently confused as to why she’s in his office.

(For the record, she doesn’t think it’s really been _that_ long that it would be strange for her to visit, but then she’s never claimed to understand Oliver’s thought processes.)

“I was on my way back to the office after lunch, but I thought I’d stop by and say hello.”

It had seemed like a good idea since, unless a major crime-related situation comes up, she won’t be seeing him that night, as it has been designated one of their mandatory Team Arrow nights off. By scheduling these ahead of time, it usually means about half of them happen, but it’s something. As important as fighting crime and helping the people of Starling City has become to her and to all of the team, they can’t do it every single night.

“That’s right,” Oliver says, suddenly frowning. “It’s lunchtime?”

She holds up her wrist and points to her watch. “It’s well past lunchtime now. Damian didn’t give you a heads up?”

Oliver considers this for a beat. “He… might have. But I’m trying to find—”

“It’s on your flash drive,” she interrupts. “I didn’t want to keep a hard copy.”

“Oh.”

“So, no worries! Problem solved!” She grins and mimes a victory fist pump as Oliver slowly rises to his feet.

He makes the distance between the file cabinets and his desk in three long strides and retrieves the flash drive in question, holding it up for her to double check.

“That’s the one,” she nods in agreement.

Now that the mystery of the missing report has been solved, she expects him to relax, but in fact, the opposite happens. In a matter of moments, he’s looking at her with an intensity she can’t place. In her mental catalogue of his expressions, this is one that is entirely unfamiliar, and it’s disconcerting to say the least.

But she wonders if maybe she’s not the only one caught off guard. If she’s a little bit perplexed by his behavior, he seems entirely not himself.

“I, um…” She doesn’t mean to stumble over her words, but it’s hard not to when he’s looking at her so intensely. “I actually have to get back. I have a first-time client coming by in about an hour and I need to go over meeting prep. I just wanted to say hello. I’m sure… I’m sure I’ll see you this weekend.”

She turns and takes a few steps toward the door before she hears him call her name.

“Felicity?”

“Yeah?” When she glances back, she catches him wiping his hands nervously against his suit pants.

“I was wondering…” he begins, pausing to clear his throat. “If you don’t have anything planned for our night off, would you, um… Would you be interested in going to dinner?”

“Oh!” She brightens immediately, and whatever uncertainty Oliver may have been feeling seems to leave him in the shaky laugh he exhales. As much as Felicity has been looking forward to an evening at home and maybe even the chance to fall asleep before 10:00, she perks up at the prospect of dinner with Diggle and Oliver.

Since everything happened with Slade a year ago, she, Diggle, and Oliver have made an effort to go out to dinner every so often to celebrate a big takedown or just to spend some time with each other without the threat of Arrow business hanging over their heads. Sometimes the others will join in, depending on who’s in town and/or available on a given night, although usually it ends up being just the three of them. But no matter who can be there, Felicity looks forward to the rare evenings when they don’t have obligations—saving the city or otherwise—and can just enjoy themselves.

Suddenly, the idea of a night alone in her townhouse seems nowhere near as enticing as it had been five minutes ago.

She feels a flush creep over her skin as Oliver’s reserved smile morphs into a rare full-on grin. “I’d love to! Do you want me to call Table Salt? I know it’s Friday night, but I’m sure we can still get our regular table.”

“Actually,” Oliver offers, still grinning broadly, “I was thinking maybe we could try Sogna. If that’s… alright with you?”

“I’ve wanted to go there for _forever_!”

From the pleased expression on Oliver’s face, he is aware of exactly how long she’s wanted to go to Sogna. The restaurant opened on the riverfront at the end of the previous summer, and although Felicity has desperately wanted to go, there’s an eight-week waiting list for reservations. Not an ideal situation, given how unpredictable her schedule is. Besides, Sogna is really more a romantic date destination or a place for special occasions, and while she had been seeing someone semi-seriously in the fall, she hadn’t been sure it was _that_ kind of relationship. (And as it turns out, she had been right on that front.)

But hey, Felicity is not about to say no if Sogna is what Oliver has in mind. She and Diggle work hard, and if Oliver wants to buy them fancy wine and an expensive meal at a restaurant she’s been dreaming of trying, she is going to let him without one word of complaint.

“You think we’ll be able to get reservations last minute?” She asks, because no matter his good intentions, Sogna may be a better option for a night when they’ve planned ahead a little more. He seems fairly set on his restaurant choice, but sometimes he doesn’t see the everyday realities of a situation. Then again, he _is_ Oliver Queen and he did just regain control of his family’s company and all of their related trust funds. So, Felicity isn’t sure. “I mean, we can always call and see, but maybe we should have a back up plan?”

“ _Felicity_ ,” he says calmly, somehow sensing the full-on ramble she had been about to dive into. “I’ll take care of it. How does 7:30 sound? I’ll pick you up around 7:00?”

It sounds a lot like it will give her just enough time to go home, shower, change, and redo her nails if she leaves work exactly at 5:00, she thinks.

But to Oliver, she says, “Yeah, that sounds great. I uh, I really do need to get back to work now, but I’ll see you at 7:00.”

“I’ll see you then.” He smiles easily before adding, “Before you go… You don’t happen to remember where we put the projected budgets from last year, do you?”

Felicity gives him a sharp look because really, her filing system is not hard to figure out if anyone thinks about it for even half a second, thank you very much. “Third drawer on the left, in the green files because, well, accounting and finances.”

“Right,” he nods, sufficiently chastised. “Of course.”

“Goodbye, Oliver. I’ll see you later.”

She rolls her eyes as she shuts the door behind her, but as she makes her way to the elevator and down to the lobby, she’s smiling. As she exits Queen Consolidated and reemerges into the bright spring afternoon, her mind is already running ten steps ahead, preoccupied with her upcoming client meeting and the other projects she’s managing.

And if there’s a small thought in the back of her mind, something that tells her their dinner that night is different from any of their other dinners, she just ignores it.

 

 

 

It’s a good thing Felicity manages to escape from the office at 5:00 sharp because her calculations are exactly correct: she is just hanging her rejected dresses back up in her closet when the doorbell rings, announcing Oliver’s arrival. He’s actually five minutes early, which is a little bit strange considering his track record, but she’s too busy double checking her appearance in the full-length mirror in her closet to dwell on it.

She’s opted for the little black dress she’s been holding back for a special occasion, figuring a night out with Oliver and Diggle is sufficiently special enough. She’s left her hair in loose waves and finished her outfit off with strappy black heels and simple amethyst earrings for a dash of color. After deeming her appearance acceptable for the evening’s destination, Felicity quickly flips off the lights and heads downstairs to let Oliver in.

“Hey.” Oliver is smiling at her almost shyly as she opens the door and ushers him inside. As he steps over the threshold, he offers her a small ceramic vase with several long-stemmed white flowers in it. Felicity thinks they look like orchids, but she can’t quite be sure. (It’s been a long time since she took that botany elective in high school, after all.)

“Are these for me?” She asks, feeling instantly foolish because he probably wouldn’t be holding the flowers out for her to take otherwise.

“They’re orchids,” he says by way of explanation, confirming her own observations. “I uh, I was looking for something else, but I thought this would go well in your kitchen since you just repainted it.”

“It’s perfect.” She smiles reassuringly and crosses the distance to her kitchen. Only a few weeks ago, Oliver and Roy stopped by to help her finish painting. When she bought the townhouse, the kitchen had needed updating, but she hadn’t had the time or the resources to complete renovations until just recently (nor, with the work hours she kept, did she have a particular need for it). She places the flowers on the windowsill right above her kitchen sink, giving herself a moment to take in the picture it makes. “I think it looks great, Oliver. Thank you.”

Oliver practically beams at her, appearing far more relaxed and at ease than she’s seen him in a long time—or possibly ever. 

Felicity isn’t sure why, but a shiver runs down her spine. She grabs her wrap and clutch before turning back to him. “Shall we?”

There’s a tension that exists in the way he places his hand on her lower back as they walk out the door and onto her front porch, but she ignores it in favor of focusing on the warm spring evening. Oliver has exchanged his usual town car for a Bentley she’s never seen him drive before. Diggle isn’t with him, which isn’t _entirely_ out of the ordinary, although they drive over together more often than not. But since the baby’s been born, sometimes he’ll bring his own car in case he needs to go straight home.

Felicity climbs into the passenger seat, and by the time Oliver has pulled out of her neighborhood and onto the main street, the tension dissipates. It’s a comfortable ride over to the restaurant, and he doesn’t even complain when she fiddles with the radio stations. By the time he hands the keys over to the valet, Felicity is completely relaxed and all the stress of the week has drained away.

The hostess takes Oliver’s name and leads them over to a table by the window, overlooking the water. The days are long enough now that the sun won’t set for another half an hour or so, and the view from their table for two should be perfect.

Huh, she supposes Diggle won’t be joining them, then.

Oliver holds her chair out for her, and they quickly decide on a bottle of wine and appetizers to share. Before she knows it, she’s sitting back in her chair and sipping the house red while listening to Oliver fill her in on the rest of his afternoon. With candles and flowers at the center of the table, to outsiders they might give off the appearance that this is more than just a dinner between friends, but they’re spared by the fact that no one else seems to be paying close attention.

She’s not really worried about what other people think as long as no potential awkwardness, perceived or otherwise, arises to ruin their night. She can create awkwardness well enough on her own, but tonight, she’s simply going to do her best to enjoy herself without concern for pretenses or perception. It’s comfortable and easy, sitting here with Oliver and listening as he tells her about some of the projects he’s hoping to revive now that he’s regained control of the company. He worked hard to get it back, and it shows when he talks about it.

“What about you?” He asks while she’s still laughing at his comment on the new QC applied sciences building and how no one would ever guess they were the ones who had blown up the original. His ability to joke at what had been a difficult time for all of them does not escape her notice. “How did your meeting with that new client go?”

“Well, I think,” she says, taking another long sip of her wine. “He asked for a contract to look over, so I’ll see. We’re getting steady work, though, and we’ve turned a profit for the past five months. I think that’s a good sign. I’ve talked to my old professor about hiring two more recent grads because if things keep up like this I’m going to need the extra hands.”

After Oliver lost control of Queen Consolidated, she quickly decided that as much as she loved regular IT work, going back to it wasn’t going to be enough for her. Using some contacts through her favorite college professor and mentor, she started her own consulting business, and the work that was sparse to steady at first has grown exponentially as she’s started to make a name for herself locally. With just two recent MIT grads and a receptionist, her small office has been perfect for her, and the ability to set her own hours has made managing the Arrow business a little bit easier.

Felicity loves what she does, for her day job and night job, so she knows she gets carried away talking about it, but as Oliver fixes his gaze on her over his wine glass, she senses he doesn’t mind.

“It’s really amazing,” he says softly, reaching across the table to hold her hand. “What you’ve managed to do with your company in just a few months. I’m really proud of you. We all are.”

He squeezes her hand in an affectionate gesture that makes her breath catch in her throat. It’s a little bit much, the soft music of the restaurant, the gentle glow of candlelight, and the sun setting over the river. She’s had dates in the past few months that were far less romantic than this. Several of them, in fact.

Felicity is incredibly grateful when the waiter comes with their entrees, effectively pulling her back to reality as Oliver is forced to drop her hand. They eat together in a mix of comfortable silence and casual conversation as the sun sets over the water, the last rays of sunlight reflecting of their glasses. They talk about anything and everything except Arrow business—that’s part of the rules of their team dinners, after all, and it’s unwise for them to discuss it in public anyway.

It’s only when the waiter comes to take their empty dinner plates and offer them the dessert menu—interrupting the story Oliver is telling her about how he and Thea used to get out of going to swim practice—that she’s reminded once again of exactly what this evening is _not_.

“Do you want to split something?” Oliver offers when she says she’s pretty full but is still considering dessert. (It’s not likely she’ll be back here anytime soon, and the evening really has been wonderful from start to finish. She isn’t quite ready to go home yet.)

“Sure,” she agrees easily. Everything on the menu looks fantastic and she knows Oliver doesn’t have much of a sweet tooth, so she asks, “Is there anything in particular that caught your attention?”

He shakes his head. “No, anything you want is fine with me.”

“You’re sure?” She raises an eyebrow skeptically, but he sounds so earnest when he reaffirms her that he’s sure that she doesn’t want to push it. She reads the choices over carefully before picking out an apple crostata with vanilla gelato that might be enough fruit that he can enjoy it almost as much as she will.

He confirms that he’s fine with that choice, so when the waiter returns to take their order, she orders it and asks for an additional fork. She’s so preoccupied that she almost forgets, but right before the waiter turns to walk away she motions for him to stop.

“I’m sorry, I meant to ask you before but the crostata doesn’t have any nuts in it, does it? I have a nut allergy, so I just wanted to be sure…”

The waiter, an older gentleman with graying hair, nods stoically. “There are no nuts, miss. But do not fret, we’ve been informed of your allergy and have taken great care to avoid any nut products.”

“Oh.” She exhales, her attention completely focused on Oliver as the waiter walks away to put in their order. “I, um… Thank you, Oliver, for doing that for me.”

“I know you tell them too,” he says with a shrug of his shoulders, “but I always like to be sure. I know how you feel about needles.”

“Well, it means a lot when your last date practically _insisted_ you share a chocolate hazelnut cake.”

“You didn’t—?”

She shakes her head insistently. “Of course not! Please, I do not look good in hives. I especially do not look good when my throat is closing up.”

“Let’s not experiment and find out.”

“I second that,” she agrees, grinning. “Needless to say, hazelnut cake guy did not get another date. If I say I have an allergy and cannot share that particular dessert, I am not just trying to get my way. I was perfectly happy ordering my own.”

Oliver nods, holding his wine glass but not drinking. It’s only his second glass and he hasn’t finished half of it yet. She’s two glasses ahead of him, but she’s been drinking slowly over the course of the evening so she’s just a little relaxed and warm.

“You don’t mind the apple crostata,” she asks again, just to be sure.

“I really don’t,” he assures her. “You know I’ll eat just about anything, and I’m happy with whatever you want.”

“You are far more amenable than anybody I’ve been out with since Ryan and I broke it off,” she says absent-mindedly before finishing off the last sip of wine in her glass. “I have gone out with some _real_ gems recently.”

Oliver grimaces a little at this, but he asks, “Have you been… dating a lot?”

“Not really,” she answers, opting to switch temporarily to the water she’s been ignoring for the majority of the evening. “But I have gone out on a few dates, and Neha keeps trying to convince me to create an online dating profile. I have resisted thus far, but only because I can tell her about asshole Mike the lawyer and Clay who laughed at everything. Not everything I say is funny and I am well aware of that fact no matter how much I may laugh awkwardly when I’m nervous. If you’re laughing so much that even _I_ think it’s excessive, that’s not a good sign.”

As she reviews some of her more recent dates in her mind, she considers ways she can turn tonight’s dinner into a date just to put Neha off a few weeks longer. Neha, one of the recent MIT graduates Felicity has hired to work for her, means well but is very insistent, so tonight’s dinner might make a decent distraction.

“And neither of these was hazelnut cake guy?” Oliver inquires, pulling her out of her thoughts.

“Nope,” she says, popping the p and eyeing the waiter as he returns to the table with their dessert and coffee. She’s momentarily distracted as Oliver motions for her to take the first bite, and it doesn’t disappoint. “Hazelnut cake guy’s name was Harrison, which is easy to remember because alliteration! But he wasn’t even the worst of them. That was definitely asshole Mike the lawyer. Some of them have actually been fine, you know. They haven’t all been terrible dates! But I also don’t really want to waste my time.”

“I don’t want you to waste your time either,” he says, clearly uncomfortable for the first time all evening. Felicity isn’t quite sure how she’s misspoken, but she wants to walk it back. Aside from the fact that Diggle isn’t with them, this has been a near-perfect evening, and she doesn’t want it to end on a bad note.

It hits her, suddenly, that maybe he thought she was talking about him. Oliver tries not to project this image, but he’s incredibly sensitive and has a tendency to doubt himself. If she’s talking about not wanting to waste her time, he may have projected that onto himself, even though all she had been talking about is her recent string of bad dates.

“Oliver.” She watches as he focuses intently on the dessert that until now he’d only taken a few bites of. She waits until he finishes, forcing him to meet her gaze so that he knows she’s serious. “You’re never a waste of my time.”

He relaxes visibly at this, nodding slowly and deliberately before he says, “Okay.”

That seems to do the trick, and Felicity sighs quietly in relief. Tonight is supposed to be about them having a good time, and she’d never forgive herself if Oliver spent the rest of the evening brooding in self-doubt.

The man does that enough on his own. As his friend, she takes her job of preventing that whenever possible very seriously. She diverts the conversation quickly to Thea, asking about the weekend trip they’re planning as part of their plan to get to know each other ( _honestly_ ) again.

They keep the conversation light as they linger over the last of their coffee and dessert, but before she knows it, Oliver is paying the bill and they’re making their way out of the restaurant. They’ve been there for hours and are two of the last diners to leave for the night. As they stand together—close, but not quite touching—while they wait for the valet to bring the car around, Oliver drapes her wrap carefully over her shoulder, his hands lingering like he doesn’t want the night to end.

She can’t blame him. She doesn’t want it to end either.

 

 

 

Oliver parks the car in front of her townhouse and comes around to walk her to her door. He’s hesitant again, and entirely unlike himself, as though he’s somehow unsure of what he wants to do (or even what he _should_ do). She grows nervous in response, in a way she is only when they’re alone. She’s so used to the undercurrent between them, it’s more a fact of life than anything else, but tonight everything has felt just a little too real.

So as she inserts her key in the lock on her front door, her hands unsteady as she waits for the click as the deadbolt releases, she can’t overcome her natural urge to fill the silence with _something_ just so it will be a little less, well, silent.

(It’s better that way, really, because as bad as her rambles sometimes are, they are almost always better than whatever her uninterrupted thought process might be.)

“Thank you… for tonight.” Her voice is almost as unsteady as her hands; the words are tumbling out of her mouth before she’s even aware of exactly what she’s saying. “But we have to go back one day with Digg. I feel bad that he had to miss out tonight.”

Oliver places one hand over hers on the doorknob, bringing her words and movements to an immediate and sudden standstill.

“Fe-li-ci-ty,” he says, enunciating each syllable slowly, carefully, as the look in his eyes is one of complete bewilderment. His voice is low and rough, almost unfamiliar to her. “Diggle… was never supposed to come with us tonight. I didn’t ask him to come.”

“You… didn’t?”

She’s fairly certain she’s supposed to be understanding whatever it is that Oliver means by this, but she has absolutely no idea what he’s talking about. Huh, this must be what other people feel like when she starts going off on one of her tangents.

“I didn’t.” Oliver exhales slowly, deliberately. “You generally don’t invite your other friends along when you ask someone out on a date.”

She blinks three times in rapid succession, making a mental note to make an appointment with her ENT because she could have sworn Oliver just said…

“A date—?”

“You… didn’t know?”

“Oliver.” This must be what an out of body experience feels like, because on the one hand that sounds a lot like her voice, but on the other, she’s pretty sure she’s watching this happen to someone else. “You didn’t tell me it was a _date_.”

“I did!” He insists but suddenly frowns, as though trying to remember exactly what he said.

She shakes her head slowly, intensely aware of the fact that his hand still covers hers on the doorknob, of the fact that his presence looms so closely over her. “You asked me if I wanted to get dinner tonight. You never said anything about a date. I thought it was a little weird when Digg didn’t meet us at the restaurant, but you know, maybe he couldn’t get a babysitter. I was going to stop by that bakery he and Lyla like tomorrow to get them pastries because I felt bad he couldn’t join us!”

“Oh.”

Oliver hangs his head, releasing her hand from his grip as he takes a step back.

“Hey,” she says, still processing but no longer feeling quite like she’s watching herself from a spot on her front lawn. Everything falls into place so clearly now that she knows his intentions behind the evening: the flowers, his choice of restaurant, the table overlooking the water, sharing appetizers and dessert. She’d thought it was the most romantic non-date she’d been on in months; turns out, there had been a reason for that.

“I said it was a good non-date. I promise it would have been a good date, too, if I’d known it was a date.”

“If you’d known it was a date,” he asks slowly, cautiously, as though he’s afraid of her answer, “would you still have said yes?”

Going on a date with Oliver is not something she’s ever considered in real terms—it was far better, far safer, not to, even more so after they took down Slade together, but she knows that unlike before, this time there’s no more avoiding whatever this thing is between them. Whatever her answer, it’s going to change them, but maybe the fact that he asked her in the first place means it has already changed. The idea that this undercurrent between them is more than just imaginary awkwardness, that there’s something real there and they can’t hide from it anymore, is everything she needs to know.

So she meets his gaze, feels the intensity of the spark between them and the relief that comes now that they’re acknowledging it openly, and says, “Yes, I would have.”

Oliver closes the distance between them in moments, cupping her face with one hand and runs the other through the curls hanging loosely at the nape of her neck. He leans in first, but she turns into him and tugs at his tie to pull him closer. He kisses her, an eager mix of lips and teeth and tongue, and there’s a moment of _shit, this is really happening_ before Felicity gives herself over to this thing between them.

The next thing she knows, her front door falls open and they’re stumbling through it together.

The door slams shut behind them—that must be Oliver’s doing—and then she’s pushed up against it. Even in four inch heels he towers over her, so he has to lean down to kiss her again. He seems perfectly content to stand there kissing her, one hand trailing up and down the side of her rib cage, brushing just lightly against her breast and the other fisting in her hair, but she wants more than just the teasing touch at her side and the eager stroke of his tongue against hers.

She reaches for his tie but struggles as she works at the knot—it’s kind of hard to focus on any other task with Oliver kissing her like that—and he must have been waiting for a sign because as soon as she grumbles her frustration against his lips, he moves his lips to her shoulder and his hand cups the underside of her breast. His thumb teases over her nipple, and through the thin material of the dress it’s almost more than she can take. Her head falls back against the door with a soft thud as she moans in response to his touch.

She’s lightheaded and warm all over, but it’s not the wine or the evening, it’s just him.

Slowly, deliberately, he trails a hand over the skirt of her dress to the hem. It falls just above her knees, and she gasps sharply as his hands skim over her bare skin. With one hand holding her up, the other raises the hem of her dress inch by inch. She gives up on his tie, instead opting to fist her hands in his shirt in a desperate attempt to hold herself up.

“Felicity?” He asks, his question clear in the low growl of his voice.

She moans as his fingers brush against her inner thigh, but he steadies his hand, waiting for her answer. It takes her a moment to find her voice—she supposes there really is a first time for everything—but she finally manages to exhale a low “yes,” and then his hand skims along the edge of her underwear.

He eases her panties down her legs, but she lets them pool at her feet and doesn’t try to step out of them. (She doesn’t dare move her feet for fear of tripping or falling over.)

He strokes lightly her once, then twice, more a ghost of a touch before slipping a finger inside her as she groans his name. As quickly as they started, he changes pace, alternating speed and depth to gage her reactions and what she likes best. Her hands fall from where they had been fisted in his shirt, instead falling back against the door as she braces herself against the tension building through her body.

She’s surrounded by him—his mouth at the spot where her neck meets her shoulder, his body looming over her and his finger stroking inside her, so when his thumb finds her clit and starts stroking slow circles, she’s practically gone already.

He adds a second finger and curls them inside her, and then she’s coming with a low cry and his name on her lips.

When she comes back to herself, only then does she realize that they’re both fully clothed and still standing just inside her front door—her wrap and clutch dropped somewhere on the floor and her panties still pooling at her feet. Oliver leans against her for a few seconds, just long enough that she feels the pressure of his erection against her abdomen, before stepping away and the enormity of what they’ve just started sets in.

The intensity of his gaze is overwhelming; he’s grinning like he’s incredibly pleased with himself and he’s won the lottery all at once, and while that scares Felicity a little, it doesn’t scare her as much as it probably should.

“Well, I’ve never done that before,” she says, releasing a low, shaky laugh as his eyebrow quirks in response. “I mean,” she continues in spite of herself, “obviously I’ve done that before, just not against a door. I mean! Not against this particular door. I mean…” She closes her eyes, well aware that she’s blushing furiously, and counts, “3, 2, 1…”

When she opens her eyes again, Oliver is grinning at her, clearly amused by her attempts at explanation, but as always, not judging her inherent tendency to ramble. “Felicity,” he leads dramatically, his satisfied grin still reaching his eyes. “Is there anything else you’d like to add to that?”

She groans, her head falling forward against his shoulder. Immediately, he takes one hand and lifts her chin so she meets his gaze. “If I were going to say anything else, it would probably be that I have a perfectly nice bed upstairs… but no, I am definitely not saying anything else. That would be a bad idea.”

“On the contrary,” Oliver says, cupping her cheek and kissing her soundly. “I am,” he whispers, his breath now warm against her ear, “ _very_ interested in this perfectly nice bed you have upstairs.”

“Oh. Okay.”

With another quick kiss he takes a step back and he shakes his head, suddenly remembering something. “I can’t believe you didn’t realize I was asking you on a date!” he exclaims incredulously.

She does feel a little bad about that because it’s clear he put a lot of thought into their evening, but she can’t let herself feel _too_ bad. While Oliver may not exactly be the master of stealth and she is a perfectly intelligent woman who can usually see right through him, thank you very much, she is also not a mind reader. If he doesn’t tell her certain things, she has no way of knowing.

“Of course I didn’t know it was a date!” she reminds him. “Usually when someone asks me on a date, they specify that it is, you know, a _date_!”

“The flowers weren’t a hint?”

“The flowers are beautiful, Oliver, but they’re not exactly date flowers… You really brought me a houseplant, come to think of it.” She runs a hand along the stubble on his jawline—which is not something she’s usually into, but it really _works_ for him, now that she’s thinking about it—and chuckles affectionately. “You really are the most ridiculous man I’ve ever met. That’s a compliment, by the way.”

He kisses her again, long and hard, and she starts maneuvering them towards the front stairwell. If she asks, maybe he’ll carry her up the stairs, but first, she needs to clarify one more thing.

“Hey, Oliver,” she says, reluctantly pulling away from his lips so she can focus her best stern look at him. When she’s sure she has his attention, she continues, “In the future to avoid any confusion, you should really make sure the next girl knows that you’re asking her out on a date.”

“In the interest of being very clear this time,” he says good naturedly, a laugh rumbling in his chest as he pulls her back in close. “I don’t plan on there being a next girl.”

They don’t quite make it to her bedroom after that.

Although they do make it there. Eventually.


End file.
